G'day mates! Yellow Tail America has a blog! It's a little disappointing, however, as the blog hasn't been updated since October. What's even more disappointing is that the blog was founded in October! As many of you may or may not know, I'm a big fan of Yellow Tail wine. It's a good Australian wine at a great price! I can usually pick up a bottle for about six bucks, or five if I'm lucky. While I think a blog devoted to Yellow Tail wine is a wonderful idea (Why not use the title "Yellow Tale"?) it seems to have been poorly executed. Maybe the webmaster discovered he liked Yellow Tail a little too much, only to check into rehab... Or maybe it's just sloppy.

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Newsflash: Instapundit just discovered Jeff Buckley! GEEKPUNDIT EXCLUSIVE! MUST CREDIT GEEKPUNDIT! Well, maybe not an exclusive, since Glenn just posted it over at his own, infinitely more trafficed site. Maybe I'm too much of a music snob for my own good, but it seems like an obvious oversight to me. Afterall, Reynolds is often listing musicians I've never even heard of, and Jeff Buckley just got his own Legacy Edition Reissue. The legecy edition isn't exactly reserved for obscure artists, covering albums from the Clash's "London Calling" to Carlos Santana's "Santana". Welcome, Glenn. You'll have fun.

Friday, December 24, 2004

I've got to be honest. I've never read Frank Miller's "Sin City". Nonetheless, I'm pumped about the upcoming movie. Maybe it'll be utter shit. But for now I can dream. Just click on the poster for a look-see..
Go watch it now!

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

"I considered several options, including studying law, but nothing really appealed to me," recalls Bakula. "I finally decided to give acting a shot. being a big fan of musical comedy I headed for New York and eventually ended up working in the theatre."

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Is there just one "Geek Subculture"? Phoebe Maltz seems to think so. But is that true? I, for instance, never had anything to do with Dungeons and Dragons. I never even played Warcraft. I did, however, buy Magic cards, if only for a while. I was more of a comic book/science fiction guy. I'd like to think these two go together, but in my experience, people think that whatever they do must go together. That brings us back to Ms. Maltz. Even without much of the official trappings of "Geek Subculture," your membership in the club has been secured. The facination with different varieties of cheeses would probably be enough. The blogging puts you over the top. WAY over the top. Keep in mind, I respect both of those things quite a bit. Each is more useful than a facination with Babylon 5 or the fantasy worlds of Jim Henson, but I'm afraid to say they still qualify you for membership in the International Brotherhood (Sisterhood?) of the Dork. Congratulations.

Update: I think this is probably all the further evidence required to make the case. Hell, it might even qualify you for a lifetime membership.

I've got to admit it: I've got "House Fever". I can't say I've watched much of anything new this season, apart from Arrested Development and the recently rediscovered Enterprise (SHOCK! It's suddenly good! Let's hope it holds up!). Now, I'm watching House. This began as a joke a couple weeks ago. I have no idea how well House (Fox, Tuesdays 9/8c) is doing in the ratings, but I couldn't stop watching. Since then, I've seen two more episodes. I've got to admit it, though I could lose about half the supporting characters, the show has really grown on me. Last night, however, I had a startling realization. "Waitaminute! That's that chap from Black Adder III and IV!" After that, I knew that Hugh Laurie is, in fact, God. It is our duty to worship him. To enjoy him. To send him unreturned fan mail to strange places like "West Sussex" or "Northumberland". Or maybe just London. Laurie is one of several Englishmen I like. Perhaps I'll list a few more.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Apple handed me a brand-spankin' new iPod yesterday to make up for the battery problems with my old one, at no charge. The only set back was that I had to sit and watch the guy fill out forms for, like, ten whole minutes. Oh well. I'd say it's time well spent.

On a side note, I really like the design of the Apple Store, in general. This probably comes as no great surprise; the design has gotten raves. My one big disappointment, however, is the bathroom. The store is so thematically cohesive, that I guess I was expecting more. In stead, it was just plain, ol' fixtures. Nothing special. I guess I was hoping for a glass toilet. Or a sink shaped like an Apple logo. Or maybe lit in that OSX Aqua color. Imagine, if the bathroom did have a glass toilet, you could watch your own waste squish down the pipe, like an open program into the dock in OSX. Stupendous!

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

While Instapundit is out buying himself a new iPod (through amazon.com, natch!), I thought I'd take a moment to say how helpful Apple has been to me, lately. You see, I'm suffering from Severe iPod Battery Disorder, and it hasn't been easy. However, today Apple called to tell me there's a new iPod waiting for me downtown, and all I have to do is come pick it up. Now I can finally get back to living a normal life...

I was recently given the task of finding some old dissertations in the U of C's various libraries. Just on the face of it, it seems as though scholarship has changed quite a bit in the last hundred years. Yes, these dissertations were still written about a wide range of obscure topics that some grad student thinks is worth a 200+ page manuscript, but the choice of subject seems to have changed quite a bit. I suppose it's not entirely out of the question, but this dissertation "The Expressions of Emotion in the Pidgeons" struck me as especially bizarre.

What's more bizarre is that, by my count, there were 5 dissertations written in the span of about four years (1908-1911) on the subject of pidgeons (mainly their eggs). One wonders why. Most likely, a very interested faculty member was able to trick these young scholars into devoting a substatial amount of time into study of a bird he found interesting. However, given the pidgeon population on the U of C campus, at least today, it's possible they wanted to study other birds, but were just too lazy.

There's also a strange facination with grammer in the bible. Here's two: "The Verb and the Sentence in the Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah: A Study" and "The Participle in the Book of Acts".

A few that seem just a little too general or just plain odd:
"An Experimental Study of Fatigue"
"Federal Legislation Regarding Aliens"
"Studies in Rythm"
"The Problem of the Angle-Bisectors"
and "The Contribution of Emerson to Literature"

Rhino is reissuing the Cure's LPs, starting with what was apparently their first album, "Three Imaginary Boys". I've never really listened to the Cure, but I'm starting to feel as though I should. Pitchfork has a glowing review of the rhino-reissue. Rhino did something very similar to this to the early Elvis Costello albums, and the one I got my hands on, "My Aim is True", is just fantastic. Frankly, Rhino's endorsement through reissue means about as much to me as Pitchfork's review. Maybe I'll take it for a spin.

Maybe I'm a bit behind the curve in saying this, but I'd like to send my friend Molly a warm congratulations on graduating from the U of C. I'll be joining you shortly. Phoebe has more on the subject, but not much more.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Glenn Reynolds inadvertantly openned the floodgates. The most read blogger on the web asks his readers for advice on the iPod and then he's surprised when he gets a gajillion emails on the subject. I'm a devoted instapundit reader, so it surprises me that a gadget lover like Reynolds would miss the likelihood that his blog post would doubtless be read by lots of huge nerds (I mean, we're talking about blogs. It's a fairly self-selecting sample. Fortunately, the internet magnifies our numbers and our influence! Mwa ha ha!)

The truth is, nothing motivates nerds quite like the most beloved sources of our nerdiness. The iPod has become something of a symbol of nerd-chic. I mean, it's a hard drive with white headphones. I repeat IT'S A HARD DRIVE WITH WHITE HEADPHONES. Yet, the fashionistas can't get enough of it. And we nerds who own one spend every waking hour with it as close to our hearts as we can manage. It's a symbol of our power and our growing influence over the culture. Last year, a movie about elves, dwarves and orcs won the oscar for Best Picture. We've won. The cultural power of the nerd finally equals the affluence he gained during the 80's and 90's.

However, I do think the iPod love portends something a little less apocalyptic than the rise of the nerd. Reynolds' readers are presumably more conservative than liberal (though I'm sure he has a large contingent of liberal readers), yet people from every side of the spectrum are just as enamoured with the little white headphoned hard drive as the other. The New York Times writes about iPod and iTunes news every chance they get. Red and Blue America, UNITE! Party affiliation may be only skill deep, but we're dorks all the way to the bone.

It's an honor to start the new blog with the delightful task of posting about the (apparently) upcoming Babylon 5 motion picture. Am I a huge geek? Well, the name says it all, doesn't it? Now, J. Michael Straczynski (creator and almost exclusively the writer of Babylon 5) is famously connected to his fans over the web, and there's yet to be any official word from him. However, the balloon's gone up all over the movie gossip sites. While nobody has anything appreciably different from the other sites, it's worth keeping an eye on each of them.

It's the end of Fall Quarter here at the University of Chicago. That means it's time for a new blog. These things have an interesting life-cycle. I feel as though it makes more sense to start a new blog from scratch, rather than resurrect a now-defunct blog, whose readership and interest level collapsed long ago, due to lack of interest. As always, I'll make a promise to do better next time. Just for now, though, here's a list of the blogs I started that are now dead.
-My livejournal (years and years ago. this was BIG in high school)
-aberlin.blogspot.com (technically still exists. some interesting stuff, but not much)
-innocentsablog.blogspot.com (group blog with me and Molly, both abroad. "abroad"... "ablog"... get it???)
-cabalofstyle.blogspot.com (ah, the cabal. a lovely groupblog that turned into one big cat fight. it's done, now)
-aloneinthenight.blogspot.com (a brief experiment, no defunct)